> On Aug 26, 2016, at 16:52, Suresh Ramasubramanian <[email protected]> wrote: > >> On 26/08/16, 5:00 PM, "silklist on behalf of WordPsmith" >> <[email protected] on behalf of >> [email protected]> wrote: >> >> Intrigued by the phrase "second-hand nature of knowledge." >> Can any knowledge be grouped into first- and second-hand? > > Oh I don’t know. Experiential knowledge does tend to be a cut above the “I’ve > read about it” variety. > > For example that question about the “Eruv” enclosures erected on streets in > orthodox jewish neighbourhoods so that observant jews can step outside their > homes during the Sabbath and still technically remain indoors. > > What difference do you see between our mutual friend Vikram Joshi pointing > out that he lived in such a neighbourhood and saw those for himself versus > someone else who just read about it somewhere? > > Not much when you’re looking at the +15 on the pounce in a quiz. Possibly a > lot more when that fact becomes one part of the total knowledge that makes > you / shapes you as a person. > > A cruder non quizzing (or Brahman Naman) example that might draw a clearer > distinction would be the hormonal teenager’s “before and after” – the before > being when his only date is Mrs.Palm and her five daughters, helped along by > an impressive collection of porn, and the after being when he begins to > actually make friends with and date, let alone take that relationship any > further. > > I am sure both the before and after incarnations of that teenager are > familiar with the “insert tab A into slot B” mechanics of sex – but do they > have the same knowledge? >
Our lives would be pretty poor lives if we all just relied upon experiential knowledge for the sum total of our knowledge of the world. Whatever happened to reading as a way to improve our exposure to the world, improve the world's exposure to us? Why would we devalue, in this manner, travel literature, or histories, or narrative non fiction, or any books by foreign writers -- all of which provide us only with so-called "second-hand knowledge" and not with the experience of these things (which are either difficult or, in the case of histories, impossible to experience)? You can be shaped by the eruv like billy-o. But to suggest that the cultural significance of that practice should only matter to people who have lived in those neighbourhoods doesn't make sense. > --srs > > >
